It was very hard for the princess and Prince Philip to leave three-year-old Charles and eighteen-month-old Anne behind, but it would have been totally impractical to take them on such a long sea
journey, with their parents flying off on constant whistle-stop tours, leaving virtually no time for them to spend together. Their grandparents and aunt were overjoyed to look after them and the
prince and princess planned to send by the diplomatic bag regular tape recordings so the children could hear their voices, as well as telephoning, even though it was an unsatisfactory way of
talking to such young children.
For the first stage of the journey I was the sole lady-in-waiting. The regular lady-in-waiting, Lady Palmer, had already set sail in SS
Gothic
with the main party and they were to wait
for us in Mombasa, where we were to embark at the end of the visit to Kenya. I was in the company of the princess’s private secretary, Lieutenant Colonel Martin Charteris. It was interesting
to learn about the way in which such an ambitious tour was organised: planning had started a good twelve months earlier with detailed programmes of the princess’s itinerary submitted for
approval, complete with exact timings, extremely important if everything was not to be thrown into total chaos. Prince Philip’s private secretary, the cheerful Australian Mike Parker, who was
acting as equerry to both the prince and princess, also travelled with us. He was an old shipmate of Prince Philip and was tasked with fixing any last-minute problems or running urgent messages. He
would be liaising directly with the ADCs of the governors or governors-general of the countries we were visiting, and it was his responsibility to ensure that things ran smoothly day to day. The
most essential member of the entourage – and very much the queen bee – was Bobo MacDonald, the princess’s dresser. She had started out as the princess’s nursery maid and
been with her ever since. If Bobo was upset, the princess was upset, so we all took great care not to upset her.
My job as lady-in-waiting was to remain as close to the princess as possible in case I was needed to answer a query or convey a message. I was always to travel with the private secretary and the
equerry in the car directly behind the royal car, and on engagements to sit or walk immediately behind the princess. I would hold her handbag if she had to present new colours to a regiment, and
when she met crowds of well-wishers I was to take the bouquets that she could not hold. I was also to answer the huge amount of unofficial correspondence that would doubtless be arriving on a daily
basis. If the princess were to carry out an engagement without Prince Philip, I would accompany her in the car, and if she gave a party I would greet the guests and look after them before the
princess received them.
Mercifully, the chief Lady Clerk at Buckingham Palace was very experienced and had given us folders of letters she had already drafted according to the usual protocol – ‘The Princess
Elizabeth desires me to thank you’ – so we merely had to sign them. We had to dictate less straightforward letters before signing them, and as the numbers increased, we found ourselves
having to deal with this part of the job on a day when we were not ‘in waiting’.
When we arrived in Kenya, I was immediately struck by the smell of earth baked by the sun and the brilliant colours of the birds and flowers that at once reminded me of India. After a few days
in Nairobi – a whirlwind introduction to a life of cheering children, regimental inspections, hospital and church visits, lunches, dinners and receptions – we travelled north on bumpy
roads, engulfed by clouds of red dust, to Sagana Lodge on the slopes of Mount Kenya in the Aberdare Mountains. This fishing lodge had been given to the prince and princess as a wedding present by
the people of Kenya, and this was their first visit. Mike Parker and I were the only members of the royal household to accompany them. The princess and I spent the first two mornings riding a
couple of reliable police horses that I had managed to secure, while Prince Philip and Mike relaxed, fishing in the nearby trout stream.
On the third evening we set off in an open jeep – the princess and I wearing khaki shirts and slacks, drawing a few comments from Mike, who was unused to seeing us in anything other than
silk or cotton dresses. We were heading for Treetops, the tree-house-turned-miniature-hotel built in the fork of a huge 300-year-old fig tree. Eric Sherbrooke Walker had built his now famed –
and greatly enlarged – hotel over a large waterhole, the edges of which formed a natural salt lick that extended right to the foot of the tree.
It was a remote spot on the elephant migration path to Mount Kenya, and promised spectacular views of the elephants and many other splendid wild animals. The last quarter of a mile of the
journey had to be made on foot down a track also used by the animals. Sherbrooke Walker was waiting as our guide, and warned us not to tread on twigs or scuff leaves and to walk in total silence,
and speak only in a whisper in the event of a dire emergency. We followed him in single file, accompanied by some rather unsettling trumpeting and crashing sounds, until he stopped and pointed to a
white pillowcase – the sign for ‘Danger at the Waterhole’ – Muttering above the roof of the hotel. Sherbrooke Walker conferred with Prince Philip, who whispered a rather
hearty ‘No! Let’s go on!’ After a moment’s hesitation, Sherbrooke Walker decided to take the prince and princess on alone, indicating that he would come back for Mike and
me. As they set off again, he waved vaguely at the rough ladders nailed to worryingly small trees every fifty yards or so and whispered that we should climb up them if an animal appeared.
‘The safe height is ten feet for rhino and buffalo but twenty feet for an elephant,’ he hissed. Far from reassured by this instruction, I turned to Mike, who whispered, ‘Pammy, if
you have to climb one of those things and feel someone overtaking you, it will be me!’ We decided not to take any chances.
The prince and princess safely climbed the ladder into the tree house, despite the presence of a cow elephant standing guard over her herd, anxiously flapping her ears just eleven feet away
behind the thinnest of hedges. African elephants are far larger than Indian ones and cannot be tamed, and these mountain elephants had a particularly ferocious reputation. Luckily the wind was
blowing across the clearing towards us so no scent was being carried to her. The princess was already busy filming, excited by the presence of such a wide variety of magnificent creatures. She was
also concerned for us, asking what it had been like, being left behind in the bush. We left her in no doubt as to our feelings. It was only later that we learned that Jim Corbett, the great white
hunter, was hidden in the undergrowth with his loaded gun, protecting us not only from the animals but also the threat of Mau Mau guerrillas. We also heard that just after we left Treetops,
elephants had uprooted all the trees with ladders, including the very ones that Mike and I had clung to so fearfully.
At the time, the house was very simple, comprising four very small bedrooms, a tiny dining room and kitchen and an observation balcony that ran down the whole of one side. The bedrooms had been
carefully prepared for us but the staff could do nothing to prevent the hilarious sight that greeted us as we looked up at the tree. Just before our arrival, baboons had stolen rolls of toilet
paper from the minuscule loo and now the branches were festooned with large untidy swags of cheerful white. We didn’t get much sleep that night, as there was so much to see once the moon was
up. It was a thrilling sight, watching the animals arrive at the waterhole and observing the antics of the baby elephants that blew water from their trunks over the monkeys, as well as the young
bull elephants enjoying a mock fight.
While we were standing in awed silence, watching the comings and goings before us, King George VI, aged just fifty-six and in the sixteenth year of his reign, died in his sleep. Earlier in the
day he had been watching his guests shoot at Sandringham. He then retired to bed and suffered a coronary thrombosis. So the princess who had climbed up the ladder at Treetops came down the next day
as a queen. Signals in cipher had been sent out to Kenya immediately but no one in Government House, Nairobi, could decipher them because the cipher book had been taken by the governor, who was
already driving to Mombasa to bid us goodbye the following day. After little sleep at Treetops, we had driven the twenty or so miles back to Sagana Lodge, exhausted but euphoric after a magical
night of big-game watching. We had a very easy morning, totally unaware of what was happening back in England. We must have been among the last people in the world to hear the news.
The King had been found dead by his valet when he went in to call him. At 8.45 a.m the King’s principal private secretary had called his assistant in London, using the code word
‘Hyde Park’, telling him to inform the prime minister and Queen Mary. At 10.45 a.m. the British news agencies were permitted to announce the King’s death. The news did not begin
to percolate into Kenya, which was ahead of Britain by three hours, until after 1.45 p.m. local time, the time that we, none the wiser, were finishing lunch. The rest of the royal party, waiting
for us on board
Gothic
, were also oblivious. Lady Palmer had gone up on deck after lunch to admire the decorations on the buildings that lined Mombasa harbour. She was very puzzled when she
noticed people had begun to pull them down.
After lunch, Prince Philip read the newspapers and dozed on his bed, while the princess wrote to her father, telling him about all the wonderful sights she had seen, emphasising how much he
would enjoy it here and saying she hoped he could come out in the future to see it for himself. Meanwhile, Martin Charteris was waiting in the lobby of the Outspan Hotel in Nyeri for his group to
depart for Treetops, when a local reporter emerged from a telephone booth, ashen faced. He told Martin that there was a Reuters newsflash proclaiming that the King was dead. For a moment neither
man could speak – to them, as to the rest of the world, the news was totally unexpected. Then the dreadful implications of this information dawned on Martin and he jumped into the booth to
telephone Buckingham Palace. Unable to get through, he rang Sagana Lodge to see whether he could get confirmation of the news from us. Mike answered the call and Martin was as usual discreet and
told him that a Reuters newsflash was announcing the death of our ‘boss’s father’ and asked what we knew. When Mike had recovered he replied that we knew nothing, so Martin
suggested we find a wireless.
There was indeed a portable wireless in the sitting room where Princess Elizabeth was writing and Mike crept in, managing to get it without her noticing. After a few minutes of static and
frantic tuning we finally made out the faint sound of the solemn music with which the BBC had replaced all its programmes. After the tolling of Big Ben, the news at last reached us from far away,
the gravity of the newsreader’s tone unmistakable. Mike confirmed the news to Martin and went straight in to tell Prince Philip, who lifted up his newspaper to cover his face in a gesture of
despair, saying, ‘This will be such a blow.’ He then walked into the sitting room and asked his wife to come with him into the garden. Mike and I watched them on the lawn as they walked
together slowly, up and down, up and down.
I knew how much the princess loved her father and how much he had adored her. When they returned, I instinctively gave her a hug but quickly, remembering that she was now Queen, dropped into a
deep curtsy. She remained completely calm and said simply: ‘I am so sorry. This means we all have to go home.’ When Martin arrived shortly after this, he asked her what she would like
to be called. ‘Elizabeth, of course,’ she replied. ‘It’s my name.’ She seemed surprised, but her father Prince Albert had become King George VI and her uncle David had
become Edward VIII. Queen Elizabeth II, as she had now become, was the first sovereign in two hundred years to accede while abroad. In a strange parallel, she was the same age as Queen Elizabeth I
had been on succession.
I couldn’t believe the King had died – we had all imagined that it would be at least twenty years before the princess would succeed her father to the throne. It felt completely
unreal, out here in Kenya, that the princess should now be the Queen of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland and Head of the Commonwealth. There was, of course, business to attend to, which did
distract us from the shock and grief. It was imperative that we leave as soon as possible. The new Queen returned to her desk to approve telegrams that Martin had drafted to be sent to Churchill
and to the governors-general of all the Commonwealth countries we were due to visit. Mike had to make arrangements for our journey back to England while I busied myself packing my case and Bobo
hurriedly threw things into the princess’s suitcases and John Dean, Prince Philip’s valet, did the same. Of course, there was nothing suitable for mourning, so the Queen had to wear a
beige dress with a white hat.
The plans for our speedy return soon fell into place. Within two hours of hearing the news, we were ready to leave for Nanyuki airport, forty miles away. The Queen was completely calm, and with
her husband by her side, she thanked the members of staff at Sagana Lodge, presenting them each with a signed photograph. As we drove, it became obvious that the bush telegraph had gone before us.
Local villagers stood outside their huts or lined the roads, calling out, ‘
Shauri mbaya kabisa
’ (‘The very worst has happened’). That such sympathy was shown as we
drove through what was to become Mau Mau territory was truly remarkable. Mike asked the press waiting at Nanyuki not to take photographs and they stood, every one of them, to attention, big box
cameras at their feet in a mark of respect for the young Queen’s grief.
It had been decided that we should fly to Entebbe, where the royal BOAC Argonaut would meet us. As it was getting dark and the airport officials were anxious about lighting flares – the
ground was as dry as tinder – we hurried on to the waiting DC-4 aircraft. We suffered a serious setback, however, when a severe electric storm erupted. Such was the force of it that the pilot
of the Argonaut would not take off for London. I felt terribly sorry for the Queen as she had to spend the next two hours under the gaze of officials. She managed, however, to make polite
conversation with Sir Andrew Cohen, the governor of Uganda. Towards nine o’ clock we were able to take off and the Queen and Prince Philip retired to their cabin at the rear of the aircraft.
I hoped that at last she would be able to have a good cry in his arms.